Windows 98 supported up to 128 Megabytes of RAM, however there are now single chips that contain 512Mb of RAM. Windows ME has expanded the use of RAM, there is no limit on what the system will recognize and use. If a PC has three slots for RAM, and there were three pieces of RAM 512Mb each, Windows 98 would have only recognized 128Mb of RAM, where as Windows ME would recognize 1,536Mb of RAM (512 x 3). For the end user this means a ratio of 1:12 of increased speed. People often feel as though they are pulling teeth with a computer, just cannot get it to do what they want as soon as they want it. This recognition of more RAM will eliminate that wait.

             Plug and Play hardware has become popular, and Microsoft realized that as they incorporated support for PnP in Windows ME. Many peripherals now use a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port to plug into a computer. This eliminates the need to have parallel ports for printers and scanners, and serial ports for game pads and cameras. Users can simply plug in any device to any USB port rather then trying to figure out what size plug fits which port. If a user has a bunch of wires jumbled together and has USB ports, he can simply plug in the USB plug into any of the USB ports and the computer will recognize the device. A strong point for USB ports is that Windows ME reads them actively, meaning when a web cam is plugged in, it is immediately installed. Through Windows 98 the user had to turn the computer off, plug the peripheral in and then turn the computer back on for it to be installed. Upon waiting for the computer to restart several times a user could get a cup of coffee and possibly make some toast. Imagine being able to get the cup of coffee and toast whenever you wanted it because you did not have to wait on your computer to restart again. After a camera is plugged into the system, the computer remembers it so a user can unplug it, plug in a different device and then plug the camera back in and the computer will not need to re-install it.